John Kerry disappoints in new role

July 12, 2014

Sometimes one regrets a vote and I believe that I am beginning to rue the vote I cast for John Kerry in 2004. As Secretary of State, he has comported himself in a manner which suggests that he is not fully up to the mark. He has been shrill in his comments, imprudent in his suggestions and unmeasured in his judgment.

Where to begin. Perhaps his crusading approach and his blithe style have combined to make his short tenure a near disaster. After ISIS made its run in Iraq, Kerry suggested that the United States should "moderate" Syrians. Despite mounting evident that whatever aid the U.S. has proffered these so-called centrist's probably fell partially into the hands of ISIS, it would not hurt to give them a few more implements of war. Moreover ISIS is an opponent of President Bashar al-Assad, who ordered that marauding band be bombed, and now threaten Iraq. Moreover the U.S. has sent 300 advisers to aid Nuri al-Maliki, who's a partner of Assad.

Since his installment as Secretary, Kerry has behaved less like a diplomat and more as a crusader. His finger is at the ready to be placed in the face of those who offend his sensibilities. If it's not Benjamin Netanyahu, it is Vladimir Putin. He does not negotiate, he lectures and pontificates, behaving like a Woodrow Wilson, who dreams not only of peace but teaching all and sundry to "elect good men." Facts do not dissuade and arguments do not move Kerry. It is the doctrine of American exceptionalism presented at warp speed. Moreover, it has not worked, because his mugwump high-toned rhetoric does not reflect reality.

President Barack Obama has been ill-served by both Kerry and his predecessor, Hillary Clinton. Both champion a neo-conservative agenda with a twist. While Richard Cheney waged war without explanation, Obama's crew want to place intervention in context by saying it is in everyone's interest. But Clinton was different from Kerry in one crucial but important respect - she was quiet. Kerry comes across as a salesman who peddles a product no one can appreciate. In Iraq it is once more a rearranging of deck chairs, in Ukraine it is meddling in an area which is not vital to the United States.

If Hillary's folly was Libya, Kerry's go far deeper. If John Quincy Adams warned America not to go abroad to slay dragons, Kerry is on a non-stop lecture tour in a hopeless attempt to sell American superiority. Every state and nation has to adjust to America's fetish for a particular brand of democracy. As with Egypt, it's not enough to vote, you have to vote for our kind of guy. Kerry is like a music teacher who whacks fingers if the notes are not sweet enough for his liking. Bombast and indignation do not equal diplomatic skill. Simply put it, he resembles Dean Acheson with his arrogant manner and reform club superiority. He neither serves his president nor his country well.

Now Kerry thinks it is swell to push Obama to go the John McCain route. The president should resist this advice.